Dan Abnett - The Fall of Malvolion

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2024-12-24 0 0 175.6KB 15 页 5.9玖币

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BY DAN ABNETT

Author of the Black Library's superb 'Gaunts

Ghosts' series of novels, Dan Abnett tells the

tale of the last few days of the beleaguered

world of Malvolion.

y his wrist-chronometer, it was not yet

noon, but the air was warm and clammy.

Trooper Karl Grauss of the Fifteenth

Mordian Iron Guard let his las-rifle swing loose

on its harness strap, wiped perspiration from his

eyes, and pushed the angular nose of the wrench-

bar into the rusty door lock.

He paused and glanced around at Major Hecht. The officer was tensed, his las-rifle pulled up

tight with the butt in his armpit, ready to fire. Beads of sweat dotted his face too, and it wasn't

just the heat.

"What are you waiting for?" he hissed.

Grauss shrugged. He didn't know, exactly. He didn't know anything except what Hecht had

told him and the others of Zwei Company that morning: get out to that pump station in the

delta and find out why they hadn't checked in for three days.

Grauss jiggled the wrench-bar until the tool locked against the latch mechanism, and then

began to wind the ratchet so that the door release slowly began to turn manually.

Down the low hallway behind him and the major, six other men from Zwei hugged the walls

and braced lasguns. This was the job at its worst, thought Grauss as he cranked the tool.

Sneaking into a mystery and opening doors blind when you had no idea what in the name of

the God Emperor lay on the other side.

But, dammit, they were Iron Guard! More disciplined, determined Imperial soldiers you

couldn't find.

They'd reached the pump station early that morning. A cluster of machine-barns and modular

habitats, it stood at a confluence of irrigation channels which watered the entire delta area and

fed over a dozen farmsteads. The suns were low and cool. There had been no sign of life, not

even the ever-present water birds that Grauss had seen everywhere in the marshes.

And once they had got inside, with no answers to their voice or vox calls, it had been so

damned hot and humid, like someone had set the environment controls to ‘tropical'.

The latch popped, and Grauss kicked the door inwards, swinging aside so that the Major could

slide in, gun raised and aimed.

Before them lay some kind of hydroponic workshop, with a high, cera-glass roof and metal

support pillars rusting in the steamy air. Samples of crops and yield-plants stood in labelled

pots, trays and bins all around. The walkways between the bins were metal grills. Sappy

moisture dripped from the transparent panes above.

The Mordians fanned out into the hothouse, dripping with sweat in their dress uniforms.

"What's this?" called Trooper Parnell. Grauss moved over to him, and the major joined them.

Parnell gestured with disgust at a rack of culture-trays set under some daylight lamps.

Nutrient feeder sprays intermittently misted what was in the trays with chemical washes.

Major Hecht cursed. The things in the trays looked like rotting, globular fungi; puffy, swollen,

the size of human heads. They pulsed irregularly. None of the Mordians had any horticultural

training, and none had been on Malvolion long enough to get a feel for the local flora, but

they all knew this stuff just wasn't right.

"Burn it. Get a flamer in here and burn it all." Hecht looked away from the obscene crop.

Grauss was about to obey the command, when they heard the las-fire. Close by, two or three

buildings away. Six short, frantic bursts, then a longer report made by several guns on auto,

firing together. Zwei Company's vox-intercoms spluttered out an overlapping, unintelligible

series of ear-splitting cries and yells.

The platoon turned and ran towards the sounds, Hecht in the lead. Platoon Two, scouting to

the left of them, was in trouble.

Hecht's men burst into the chamber that had been P-2's last recorded position. It was a hanger

barn, with several big-wheeled agricultural vehicles parked in it. The air was full of smoke

from discharged weapons.

There were two bodies on the floor, both men from P-2, both looking like they'd been

dismembered by industrial crop-reapers.

P-1 crept forward through the gloom, twitching for targets. Grauss found the headless corpse

of another man from P-2 leaning against the wheel-arch of one of the agri-tractors.

Looking aside from the corpse in distaste,

Grauss saw that the tractor was hitched to a

big flatbed cargo truck, with something large

and strange chain-lashed to it. Caked in the

mud of the delta, it looked for all the world

like some kind of ship: those bulbous

projections at the rear could only be

propulsion units. But... it was small, not large

enough for anything more than a single

human, and it made him sick to look at it. It wasn't made of metal. It wasn't technology as he

understood it. It looked... organic. Fleshy, pod-like, akin to the things he had seen growing in

the hothouse but many, many times larger. Was this something the station crew had found out

there in the delta and hauled back for study?

There was a cry and a burst of las-fire behind him. Grauss spun around, in time to see Trooper

Parnell's body sailing across the chamber in a welter of blood and torn flesh. Lasguns roared

and flashed. Something was moving through the gloom with terrifying rapidity. Something

with claws. Four sets of claws.

It sliced through Major Hecht at the waist, and his body fell in two, still firing.

It was right on Grauss now. He howled and started to fire.

Genestealer...

Grauss woke with a start. He was wet and slippery with night-sweat and his head pounded. It

had been two weeks since that nightmare in the pump station, a nightmare that only he and

three others from the Zwei Company detail had survived. And he could not shake it. He'd had

battle-shock before, he was a veteran, but the sheer alien horror of what he had seen, and

smelled, and felt... it haunted his sleep and his waking mind.

Genestealer...

Grauss got off his barrack cot unsteadily and pulled on a fresh uniform. Outside it was

daylight, and he could hear men and vehicles. He needed to get active. If he was going to get

over the trauma, he had to keep his mind and body occupied.

He went outside, into the raw suns-light, and watched the troop trucks and cargo-machines

rolling past in the mud. Unseasonal, warm rain hosed the street. The modular roofs and towers

of Malvolion Collective farm-plex 132/5 glistened and their gutters drooled.

The evacuation was under way.

As he crossed between growling heavy transports, he tried to reassure himself. He'd killed the

thing, blown it apart with his lasgun. It and two more like it. Then he and the other survivors

of the search detail had blown the pump station with krak mines. They'd kept their heads, true

to the famed iron discipline of the Mordians. They'd got their report back to Guard Command

and, thanks to them, the planet-wide advisory had been issued.

That had to make him feel better, didn't it?

Grauss spotted Colonel Tiegl supervising the loading of transports on a stretch of hardpan

behind a row of produce barns. The Colonel looked hot and flustered. Settlers thronged

around him, begging for more of their valuable agri-machinery to be included on the

evacuation manifest.

Tiegl broke off from them as he saw Grauss approach.

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摘要：

BYDANABNETTAuthoroftheBlackLibrary'ssuperb'GauntsGhosts'seriesofnovels,DanAbnetttellsthetaleofthelastfewdaysofthebeleagueredworldofMalvolion.yhiswrist-chronometer,itwasnotyetnoon,buttheairwaswarmandclammy.TrooperKarlGraussoftheFifteenthMordianIronGuardlethislas-rifleswinglooseonitsharnessstrap,wiped...

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Dan Abnett - The Fall of Malvolion

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